Cato Maior de Senectute

To lend his reflections greater import,[1] Cicero wrote his essay such that the esteemed Cato the Elder was lecturing to Scipio Aemilianus and Gaius Laelius Sapiens.

Plutarch, translating De senectute, calls it Περὶ γήρως (Peri geros) in Greek.

[3] Cicero represents the discourse as delivered by the elder Cato (in his eighty-fourth year) on occasion of young Scipio and Laelius expressing their admiration at the wonderful ease with which he still bore the load of life.

[4] Some of these supposed disadvantages, he maintains, are imaginary, and for any real pleasures of which the old are deprived, others more refined and higher may be substituted.

[4] The whole work is illustrated by examples of eminent Roman citizens who had passed a respected and agreeable old age.